German Revolution 1918-21

We publish here an article written by a sympathiser, in response to a debate going on within the CPGB ("Communist Party of Great Britain") which has found expression in a series of articles about the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain on the 80th anniversary of its founding.

This part of our series on the German Revolution of 1918-19 takes up the events of the mass strike which began to engulf the whole of Germany before, during and above all after the bloody and tragic events of the so-called ‘Spartakus Week' at the beginning of January 1919 in Berlin.

We look at how the ruling class used its most powerful weapons - not only armed repression, but also the ideological campaigns of the former workers' party, the SPD, to inflict a major defeat on the revolutionary movement.

On Nov 4th 1918, at Kiel, a port on the German Baltic Sea, thousands of marines mutinied against the order of the army to steam off for another sea battle. After four years of murder with more than 20 million dead, innumerable injured and the starvation of the working population; the working class had become totally fed up and was no longer ready to sacrifice itself for the imperialist war.